


A Work in Progress

by dizzy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, indulgent fluff, making canon make sense for myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2133237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek - they take their time, but they're getting there. And that's okay with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Work in Progress

There was a point, when Stiles was younger, where Derek really considered it. He had the perspective of a few years older, a few years wiser and he could recognize that there was... something. There was something there, a spark that could turn one way or the other. 

But Derek, for all the many mistakes he's made in life, does like to think he at least learns from them. What Kate did to him, how she shaped him when he was so young... Derek had known that even though he and Stiles could never be that, even though it wouldn't lead to anything that awful, that it could still end badly. 

Derek could have taken everything Stiles had to offer and he could have broken it because at the time, he hadn't trusted himself and he certainly hadn't trusted anyone else. He could have been someone's first - first everything, probably. First everything that counted. 

But he wasn't. The friction bore down without sparking, rubbed like sandpaper until what was left was nothing but smooth edges. They became friends and Stiles found other people to give him all his firsts and Derek found other people, too. There were a few that even almost made him forget that little shard of potential, times when he thought there was a reason to shut the door. 

They weren't killing time, no one was waiting and pining - they were living their lives. But those lives contained each other and after a while they'd each watched people come and go and somehow... 

Somehow, at some point, it became the two of them again. Stiles is twenty three with a degree under his belt. Derek is pushing thirty and though he doesn't really need to, he does a few odd jobs. He likes working with his hands. He likes building, creating. It feels like good karma after a lifetime plagued with description and loss. 

Somehow that spark that Derek acknowledged so quietly from the start began to take hold, and this time Stiles is old enough to get it. He is old enough to understand when and why Derek's eyes caught on him a little too long. He begins to get that pleasant little flush, and Derek loves watching the wheels turn in Stiles' mind. He sees as Stiles begins to consider it too, and unless Derek is just entirely inept at reading the cues, he's open to it. 

And Derek isn't that inept. He knows it. Maybe he'll never be the most social guy to the world in general, but Stiles? He knows Stiles. Every twitch and quirk. He knows them because Stiles is pack, because they've been friends for a almost third of Stiles' life, because he's had a front row view for Stiles growing up and into this man that he is now. Still a little goofy, sometimes an asshole, but one of the most focused and intelligent people Derek could ever want in his life. 

It's a gift to find attraction and trust in the same person. Derek has had one or the other more times than he can count in his life, but both? It's a special thing and Derek will treasure it close to him. 

It becomes less of a drifting toward each other and more of an intentional draw. It's little things at first, testing the waters. They sit close on the couch, they share meals. They go to see a movie, they try this friendship thing in private and make sure it works as well as with the group dynamic. 

People don't notice, but it's not a surprise. Everyone has lives now. Pack is pack, but there's a level of independence. People in their own homes, with their own partners and families and jobs. Pack means they're connected but it's not some replacement for a high school extra-curricular anymore. Beacon Hills has a reputation for not putting up with any of that shit. Bad guys stay away, mostly, and when they don't the pack steps up, proves their hold over the territory, and then tries to make it back home in time for dinner. 

They do the little mating dance. Stand a little closer than they need to, casual touches. Derek's hand on the small of Stiles' back, Stiles lazily draping his feet over Derek's lap. 

It's just... it's nice. It's nice and it's easy in a way that's hard won over years. It feels like a luxury, to sit back and let this happen, not to find reasons to fight against it. 

Because there is no reason, really. Stiles knows exactly who Derek is, the ins and the outs, the good and the bad. He's lived through some of the traumatic stuff and he knows about the rest. 

There are no secrets. There is no wondering what his reaction will be to anything. There is no slow unraveling, no need to wear mystery like a mask because to spill everything all at once is just too much for anyone. 

There's a night where the slow pace suddenly isn't enough, though. It's one of those bloody nights - a young pack in town, full of spunk and hormones tipping the ratio of humanity to wolf. They have brawn and idiotic bravery and some, as Stiles would say, hella fucking ouch claws, and they do some damage before they're batted down into place. 

The wolves take the brunt of it, but they get a few swipes in at Stiles, and a few too many at other breakable people. Derek hones in on him in the aftermath, slides fingers down his arm through smears of blood and leeches the pain. Stiles sighs into him, turning his forehead until it's pressed into Derek's neck. He doesn't whisper a thanks - he doesn't need to. It's all there already, and Derek gets it. 

When he asks if Stiles needs a ride back home, Stiles just looks at him. When Derek asks if Stiles wants to come back with him, the relief on his face is bone deep. 

They make it in the door before Derek breaks and gathers Stiles up to him. It's taking comfort as much as giving it; this is exhausting, and tonight someone died, and it never gets any easier. Stiles fingers dig in hard against Derek's shoulder blades, catching fistfuls of dirty t-shirt. His breath is jagged and the muted, because their mouths are on each other, a slow kiss full of perfectly laid out intent and mutual need. 

There will be mourning for a friend that fell, but right now Derek can't look past relief that it wasn't his - his person. His... Stiles. 

And Stiles must feel the same way because their lips find each other, again and again, and it's breathless and finally there's a laugh, that perfectly Stiles laugh full of wonder and disbelief. 

Derek laughs too, and catches Stiles' bottom lip between his own and it trickles down to smiling kisses before they part to shower and clean up as much as they can. There will be conversations later, because they're both human and neither currently are in possession of mind reading skills. There will still be things that need to be said and worked out, established between them. But that they can even wait on that, that even removed from some haze of lust or adrenaline that it feels like a priority to neither speaks more to how settled into the idea they already are than anything else. 

Stiles spends twenty minutes in the shower, and when he comes out there's a laxness to his bones. His hair is wet and messy and Derek gets a close up view of the circles under his eyes as he bandages up Stiles' wounds, but mostly he seems okay. They both seem okay, because they are. Sad but hopeful, reeling from loss and possibility at the same time. The range of human emotions is a crazy gamut and they're tipping back and forth all over it right now. 

But they aren't new to this, either. Losing someone makes you look around and evaluate who you still have. Derek knows that, Stiles knows that. They've both lost and learned to love harder for it. And yeah, maybe Stiles is the one that picked that up a little faster, but that's okay. If Derek still has learning left to do, Stiles is a damn good teacher. 

When the bandages are taped on tight, Stiles takes his turn checking Derek over. He's mostly healed now, and when Derek accuses him in a low voice (one might almost consider playful) of just wanting to touch, Stiles shrugs his uninjured shoulder and smirks faintly. They kiss there in the kitchen, more lowly this time, until a yawn from Stiles breaks them apart. Derek rubs a hand soothingly up and down his back as he waits it out, laughing at the way Stiles looks surprised at himself when his jaw cracks a little. 

They're both tired. It's been a long day. Tomorrow will be longer. Derek whispers something about bed and Stiles just nods, letting Derek lead him along. Something warm and sweet and heavy settles in the pit of Derek's stomach when he leaves to lock the door and comes back to Stiles mostly asleep already, tucked into Derek's sheets. His head rests on the very edge of one pillow, nose just brushing the other. There's no way to avoid him - not that Derek even wants to. Relief blossoms through his entire body when he rests against the mattress. If it feels this good to him, no wonder Stiles passed out so quickly. 

He still can't help but steal a glance or two at Stiles, at his profile in slumber before Derek drifts off himself. They don't do anything but sleep that night, but that's all right. 

This is only the beginning.


End file.
